LAUSR

(Barrera et al. 2020). The technology is also being used by care services for older persons and persons with disabilities, including those with mental health conditions (McDonald 2021) and will be likely used in home-based care, particularly for older persons (Lange and Maruthappu 2019) if indeed this is not already occurring. For the purposes of this commentary, we will focus on video-algorithmic patient monitoring in acute psychiatric settings, where it is at experimental stages (Barrera et al. 2020). Novel ethical and legal issues arise in the mental health context, particularly as semi-automated nursing may seek to analyse patient behaviour, such as those associated with selfharm, assault, and suicide, and not just physiological matters such as pulse and breathing rates. The behavioural component potentially shades into “surveillance,” where “surveillance” is defined as comprising a “[w]atch or guard kept over a person ... ; often ... supervision; less commonly, supervision for the purpose of direction or control, superintendence” (Oxford English Dictionary 2018). This is also the case where monitoring extends to surveilling against staff malpractice (see Lloyd-Jukes et al. 2021). Further, a significant proportion of inpatients in acute mental health settings are detained and treated involuntarily (over 50 per cent in some acute public mental health systems), which carry the associated and vexed questions of upholding free and informed patient consent.